God Desires Our Worship Series

Last week we talked about how God desires our hearts – hearts that are redeemed, restored, and renewed. He desires them because He created them (us) for a relationship with Him – a living God. Today we are going to talk about how to keep our hearts right where God wants them and explore the fact that God also desires our worship. And when we worship him, we keep our hearts oriented with his. Now last week, I also began by talking about communication between husbands and wives, and I’m not going to get into all of that… ;-) Let me just say that when your spouse has your heart, it will be worship that keeps those hearts locked together. You worship her and she worships you. And at this point, it would be wise of me to define worship! ;-) I might add while we are on this topic, that I had my wife down on her hands and knees this week – she was saying, “Come out from under that bed and fight like a man.”

I want to define worship, and use for more background in today’s message, a passage close to where we were last week in the book of Deuteronomy. God told Moses to tell the people His own commandments, and the very first one was, “You shall have NO other gods before me.” And chapter 6, as they were exploring these further, he said in verse 5, “Love the Lord your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” And again in verse 13, “Fear the Lord your God, serve Him only…” So we find that worship is reverent love, to give allegiance, honor, and service. Those of you who are married, if you would put this into practice, you cannot help but have hearts that are oriented to each other if you would give honor, service, reverent love to your spouse. And the fact that God created us and desires a relationship with us should give us pause to think about how we really worship him.

We know that God desires our worship, then, because first of all he has commanded it. He never asks us to do something that he doesn’t care about! If it was important enough to place it as his first priority, then we need to examine it closely. King David understood this and wrote often about it in the Psalms, and in Psalms 147:10 he says that, “His delight is in those who fear Him…”

So let’s look at some reasons why God desires our worship.

First of all, God desires our worship, because when we worship him, we honor Him as the One who is Sovereign.

In his sermon to the men of Athens, Paul told them the whole story of creation in just a few sentences. And he began by declaring that this “Unknown God” was sovereign. It was He who created the whole earth and everything in it and is Lord of heaven and earth. He does not need anything, for he gave mankind life and breath and everything else! Sovereign means the Ultimate Controller. Sovereign means there is nothing or no one that is higher or has more power. He is the supreme ruler.

When we truly worship – serve, love, live all out for Him, then we give him honor as being Sovereign. You know by now that I’m not talking just about Sunday morning and the way we sing or what we pray about. I’m talking about loving him with all our heart, soul, strength on Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, and every day of the week. I understand that it really doesn’t feel like “worship” when that customer calls that is such a pain, or the kids are being rotten, or the pain in your back hurts so bad – but it really is loving and worshipping God when you respond with love, good attitudes, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.

In Romans 11:33-36, we find a Doxology written that gives more insight on the sovereignty of God. It reads like this in the NIV,

“33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments,and his paths beyond tracing out!

34 "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"

35 "Who has ever given to God,that God should repay him?"

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

In THE MESSAGE, that same passage reads as follows:

“33 Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It’s way over our heads. We’ll never figure it out.

34 "Is there anyone around who can explain God? Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do?